Kipchoge, Lilesa and Rupp held a lead of almost 50 seconds over the chasing pack at the 35 kilometre mark.
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Kipchoge, the silver medallist in the men’s marathon in 2008 and the bronze medallist in 2004, completed the course Sunday in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 44 seconds, sprinting to the finish line with a smile on his face.
A couple of days before the 2016 Olympic men’s marathon, Galen Rupp watched the movie “Happy Gilmore”.
Galen Rupp’s ascension in the ranks of the world’s best marathoners has been astounding.
Rupp was a surprise victor of the US marathon trials in February, having never raced at 26.2 miles before. Rupp didn’t have the same motivation, but for a man who has been the US champ in the 10,000 meters for seven consecutive years, he needed some convincing to add the marathon to his repertoire.
Kipchoge and Lilesa dropped Rupp at the 35-kilometer mark and then Kipchoge put on a patented surge himself and won by a margin of 1 minute 10 seconds. Rupp’s training partner, Mo Farah, won the 10,000m in Rio.
The other American in the race, Jared Ward, hung with the lead pack into the second half of the race and fell back for good around Mile 18 but rallied to finish sixth in a personal-best time of 2:11:30. He is known as the “Running Nerd” because he is a statistics professor at BYU.
Keflezighi overcame multiple issues – including a slip at the finish line – to finish 33rd. Keflezighi, 41, is the second oldest U.S. Olympic runner of all time, behind Bernard Lagat, who ran the 5000m in Rio.
“I knew it was going to be a long day”, Keflezighi said. He never finished higher than 14th at the NCAA cross country championships but won the USA Marathon Championships in 2015.
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Rupp, is the first American-born runner to medal in the Olympics in 40 years.
